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Portrait of James Ellroy Photo: Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic (2006)

Sample of authors

Ellroy, James

Having revolutionized crime fiction in terms of language and style, James Ellroy is now one of America’s foremost contemporary crime writers. He was born Lee Earle Ellroy in Los Angles. His father, Armand Ellroy, was an accountant who moved in dubious Hollywood circles, for example as Rita Hayworth’s financial advisor. Ellroy’s mother, Geneva "Jean" Hilliker, was a nurse. Both parents were alcoh...

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Literary figures

Nate Heller

Gender: Male

His father was a police officer and Nathan ‘Nate’ Heller was one too. But he allowed himself to be corrupted, and instead became a successful private detective in the gangster-infected Chicago of the 1930s. He is of early middle age, morally rather lax, but he has a pleasant attitude and socialises with some of the city’s (real!) artists and criminals in a series of stories by Max Allan Collins.

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